Roxanne

Roxanne was my first girlfriend. I’d been on a couple of dates prior to meeting her, but nothing that prepared me for this. There were problems with the relationship from the start, the most notable being age difference. I was in my first year of college, she was in high school. Not just high school, grade nine. Four years difference. At my age now, four years would be no difference at all, but back then? She was a child, and I should never have gone down that road. What was I thinking? The answer: I wasn’t, not at all. In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances that, had they not been in place, there would have been no introduction, and no possibility of what followed. Nothing would have happened. The first was, for whatever reason, she was hanging out with my friends, who were in grade 13. She was mature for her age, and all things considered, my mind did not actually trigger on the fact that she was in grade 9. She was hanging out with my friends, after all. Should my mind have? You bet your ass it should have. But, sadly, it did not.

My first year of college was spent travelling back and forth, to and from home. Every Friday, I’d pack up, and hop on the bus at 7:30, arriving home at 11:30 in Timmins. Every weekend. In retrospect, that was not the best atmosphere for making lasting friends, but I was 18, a young 18, and most my classmates were 19 or 20, although there were a number of mature students, as well. That may not seem a big difference, but it was to me, then. I suppose my mind was still in high school; there was a divide between grades, a divide between ages. If only that sense of divide had reared its head in Roxanne’s case.

One weekend in early winter, I arrived home and hung out with Garry Martin and Deb Huisson, who’d become an item in the past year. I had already been given an absentee introduction to Roxanne in the prior weeks, but had yet to meet her. They’d talked her up some, told me how mature she was for her age, how fun she was. I was dubious. What the hell were they doing hanging out with a grade 9, I thought. I still subscribed to that age divide we’d known and loved since kindergarten, although in the past months, living with and hanging out with guys a year or two older than me, performing lab experiments with 30-year-olds, that old divide was beginning to shake off its bonds.

Then the introduction happened. At first, she was just some hangers-on, and then, after a couple weeks, we were together more, always finding ourselves seated side by each, apparently, inexplicably, attracted to one another. I felt it, and was beginning to recognize those signs I had never before seen (or recognized) directed towards me. I was flattered, elated. And I was responding in kind.

She teasingly called me “The Plaid Lad.” Everyone laughed at that. Me, too. Because it was true. But I wasn’t the only one in plaid then. I was grunge before my time. I’d thrown off the cords, was into 501s, plaid shirt and t-shirt, parkas, then leather jackets, (sky blue, HSM school jacket, yes, but leather jacket just the same). Longish hair. Edgy, and not. I was called Smilin’ Dave by some. A bit of a fuck you attitude was still to come…shortly after Christmas, in fact.

I’d never considered myself particularly attractive. Skinny, some moles, gap between my front teeth; a co-worker at the pool had once pointed out to me at 17 that my hair had begun to thin on my scalp (not the thing ANY teen wants to hear from an attractive girl). I was shy with girls, unsure how to act around them, certainly inexperienced when it came to relations beyond study groups, and the occasional chatting up over pop at Top Hats or the show. In short, girls were friends, and goddesses on pedestals. What interest I had in them wasn’t particularly reciprocated throughout high school that I was aware of. I had one real instance of being perused. Carla Colarossi had when I was in Grade 12, she in grade 11. She asked me to go to the Valentines Dance, and had made a rather heavy broach (badge? whatever) that I was to wear, and did, even though it pulled my shirt out of shape. I liked Carla, but she did not make my heart race, so nothing came of it. Aside from that, and a couple other isolated instances, I had very little experience as to how to cope with this new attention.

My relationship with Roxanne began in earnest shortly before Christmas. I did not last long. She and I would meet Saturday afternoons, and evenings, sometimes Sundays. She once came to the bus stop to see me off back to school. But I was older, I suppose faster, most definitely needier. I was ready for an actual serious relationship, despite my lack of experience. She was probably even more unprepared for me than I was for her. So she backed off, and there was a distance during the Christmas Holidays. I asked her about it. She stammered out that she had family obligations, not enough time, other concerns that I thought a bit thin. We were going out, weren’t we? I asked my friends for guidance. I asked this other guy who was hanging out with my friends, with Roxanne; where he came from, I had no clue. He was older than me, I remember that. Aside from that, I didn’t know a thing about him. I’d never seen him before that year; I’d never see him again after that year. I thought he was a wedge, between me and my friends, between me and Roxanne. But I was desperate and asked him for advice too, just the same. I remember they gave me the usual advice, give her space. I said that I was gone for a week at a time; how much space did she need?

And then, shortly after Christmas Day, she broke it off. I was devastated. I was depressed for a month, drank even more heavily than I was accustomed to do. I wanted to quit school, run away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

There was a moment that passed quickly. I was in a car with John Lavric. We were headed out to South End, to go to his girlfriend’s party. I discovered that I had my hand on the door handle. Gripping it hard. I stared at it for a moment, and then consciously, delicately, released it.

How did I do scholastically that year in the wake of my leaving home for the first time, drinking to excess every week and then every weekend, in the wake of such a disastrous reconnoiter into love and relationships? I passed with a 2.15, not low enough to have to take a year off, just enough to continue. Had I failed, things might have turned out differently. I think I hated what I was doing. My future ex-brother-in-law had quit school and returned home. I had few friends. The guys I lived with were assholes, as far as I could see. Every morning, I’d see the Northlander bus pass my house on its way to Timmins. I wanted to be on it. I wanted to be on the train heading south to Toronto. The one saving grace, was my monthly shared train trip back to Haileybury with Keith. Keith was going to college in North Bay, and he and I saw each other every month for 4 hours on that train. I never failed to exit those meetings so hammered that I didn’t feel that I was going to die; but I don’t think I could have survived Roxanne without Keith. He was my littermate. I’ve never once felt that I wasn’t where I belonged when by his side. I still don’t.

That summer John and I were hanging out in his basement. It was about a week before my near fatal car accident (see automatic escapades). My sister’s wedding was a couple weeks behind us. John was experiencing a bumpy patch with his girlfriend, Tracy, and I was just beginning to actually get a grip on myself. I said just beginning. As I said, he and I were in his basement, mixing rye and cokes. John sipped his, commenting on how his foot hurt (he had actually broken it, as I recall, having leapt a guardrail that evening, and landing poorly, spilled to the ground); I was pulling harder on my drinks. The evening progressed, we complained about women, and then I went home as dawn was beginning to give hint of its arrival, having polished off way too many inches of that bottle (it was decades before I could abide the smell of whiskey). I staggered and stumbled home, taking easily three times as long to arrive home as needed. John listened to me all night. He nodded sagely. He listened patiently, something only he and Keith had done in those six months as I clawed my way back to sanity. Others didn’t, but those two did. I will love them both till my dying day for that.

Did I love Roxanne? Probably not. Maybe I did. I thought I did. Did my brief relationship with her cast a shadow on how I approached women for years to come? Most definitely. I wish it hadn’t. Because the following school year, I met Debbie Wursluk. And I most certainly loved her.